


She Can't Really Be Gone

by LadySheik



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/M, MC and Jumin are Married, argument
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 11:21:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20852597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySheik/pseuds/LadySheik
Summary: MC and Jumin have an argument. Jumin is left to reflect on the causes and effects.





	She Can't Really Be Gone

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Can't Really Be Gone](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/524096) by Tim McGraw. 

_‘I’m going to be late for work.’_

That was the last thing Jumin had said to her.

He sat at the island in their kitchen. There was no wine glass in front of him, no bottle of cabernet, no bottle opener. Only a vase full of wilting gladiolas and a bowl full of pears sat before him. The sight of them was oddly comforting. She had placed them there with care, insisting that pears were better warm, and that the crystal vase would catch the light from the penthouse windows. Had it only been the day before yesterday that she had placed them there? It had been an age since this morning’s events.

Strangely, he didn’t feel any panic at his wife’s absence. He hadn’t checked the messenger app, hadn’t called Jaehee, hadn’t asked to see the CCTV footage. Perhaps he was in denial, but he was certain that she was coming back. There were too many reasons for her to return.

The coatrack, for instance. Her favorite hat sat on the top hook. The brim was wide and floppy, and she would always weave flowers through the red ribbon tied around the base. He could see her now, in the park, leaning over the edge of the bridge with one hand holding the hat in place against any enterprising breeze and pointing at a pair of swans drifting through the lily pads.

_‘Swans mate for life, did you know that?’_ She was always full of odd facts. It made her job easier – both as the RFA coordinator and as a novelist. She could sprinkle them through conversations, both real and fictional, like a chef adding salt to a dish.

Or the combat boots, sitting just there by the door. Jumin had seen her wear them day in and day out, something even around the house. They made her feel invincible; she had told him so the day she bought them.

The salesman had been following them around the army navy surplus store. Well, he had been following her and her brother around. Jumin was no more than a spectator on this trip to see her family, and he was even more of a spectator in the store. He had been shocked upon walking in and seeing all the knives and the firearms for sale, but neither his wife nor her brother had seemed the least bit phased. Instead, they had spent over an hour debating over the merits of various weapons, the salesman occasionally chipping in and pulling out items for them to hold.

The boots had been on the other side of the store. She had mentioned that she wanted a pair of real combat boots, not like the ones that sold in most stores and ended up in tatters after six months of purchase. The salesman had cycled through several pairs before recommending one that several police officers were fond of. She walked around in them while he detailed the various aspects, her brother occasionally chiming in with a question. Waterproof, lightweight, secure. They would last her well over two years, even with constant use.

She had laughed when the price came up on the screen. _‘I’ve never spent so much money on a pair of shoes.’_

It sounded like a confession. _‘Spend as much as you like,’_ Jumin had told her, smiling because she was smiling.

Those very boots were sitting inside the penthouse. She would never leave them behind.

He couldn’t even remember what they had been arguing about. It had started with something simple, he was sure – perhaps him leaving his toothbrush on the counter – and escalated from there.

Her books were still on the nightstand, too. Ten of them, though only four sported bookmarks in the form of various business cards. If there was anything Jumin knew for certain about his wife, it was that she would never leave her books behind, and certainly not leave them unread. If it wasn’t up to her standards, perhaps, but just the day before she had been eagerly relating to him the experiences of some Europeans on a road trip in America for the first time.

_‘Honey, they wanted to eat somewhere ‘famously American’ and guess what they chose.’_

_‘What did they choose?’ _He had been distracted, probably by work.

_‘It’s no fun if you don’t take a stab at it.’ _

Jumin could hear the pout in her voice, but he was busy – couldn’t she see that? _‘McDonald’s,’ _he said, if only to appease her.

_‘The Cheesecake Factory! Honey, their menu is a joke. In high school, my friends and I made it our summer mission senior year to eat our way through their entire menu.’_ Of course she had a story. She was a storyteller, after all.

He didn’t know when she’d come back. How many nights he’d spend alone in their bed, remembering her warmth and listening to the ghosts of her sleeping breaths in the silence. But she must be planning to come back. She had to be.

He wouldn’t allow himself to imagine what he would do with his life if he didn’t.

His phone sat face down on the island countertop, just next to his left elbow. He didn’t reach for it. Instead, he kept sitting, still as a statue, arms crossed and resting on the cold marble in front of him.

She had insisted on the marble when they had renovated the kitchen. It was, she had informed him as she spread out sample chips in front of him, much easier to roll out pastry dough on marble, and did he remember the marble rolling pin she had? He had confessed that he didn’t, and she showed him with no small amount of pride. She loved to bake, and she loved desserts.

A faint smile ghosted across his face at the thought, and it struck him suddenly that the two of them had never baked anything together. He had watched her countless times, but she had never asked for help, and much of the marriage advice columns he had read said it was good for couples to have separate interests, so he had left her to it. Now, Jumin really wanted to bake something with her.

The phone rang, and he answered it without looking at the caller ID. “Hello?”

“Jumin? It’s Seven.” When Jumin didn’t respond, the hacker kept talking. “She’s been at my place all day. Blowing off steam, mostly. But she’s headed back now. Should be there in…” He heard the faint clicks of Seven typing. “Ten minutes, if the traffic is good? I just wanted to let you know. I’m sure you’re worried.”

“Thank you for letting me know. And for keeping her safe.”

“Anytime. I have a big project and I only have a small amount of Honey Budda chips left – your wife ate most of them – so I have to let you go. Goodnight!”

“Goodnight.”

The line hung up, and he stared at Seven’s photo until the screen went black. After another minute of staring at his reflection – the blank expression, the empty gray eyes, the dark circles from too many late nights at the office – he put the phone back down on the counter.

A thousand doubts and worries were babbling at the back of his mind, but he ignored them. Instead, he listened to the silence of the penthouse: the bubbling of the fish tank, the soft breathing of Elizabeth the Third, the hum of the fridge.

It struck him that if he wasn’t careful, this silence could become his only companion.

How did this happen? In the day-to-day, how had it slipped his mind to spend every second cherishing her very existence? She never forgot to cherish him, not even when she was engrossed in her latest manuscript. Even when she was ignoring him in favor of her characters, she always paused long enough to give him a lingering goodnight kiss. And even though he could remember every detail of what it was like to make love to her, he couldn’t remember the last time he had done it.

When had his affection become perfunctory? When had he stopped making an effort? When had his kisses become no more than an afterthought?

When had the privilege of loving her ceased to be something special?

He turned around in his chair when he heard the beeping of the keypad outside the door. Then his wife stepped inside and shut the door softly behind her.

She was a mess. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot, her cheeks streaked with tears. She hadn’t showered, and she was still wearing her _Legend of Zelda _pajamas.

When she smiled at him, an exhausted quirk at the corner of her mouth that was still, against all odds, filled with an ocean of love, he put his head in his hands, and he started to cry.


End file.
